Wendover pondered for a moment; then he seemed to see a solution.
“Perhaps they had two murderers at work and each of them imagined he’d got the right man in front of him. The two Shandons were very much alike, you know.”
Sir Clinton nodded without committing himself.
“Pass along to the next caravan! What’s the next animal on show in your menagerie?”
“I’m a bit doubtful about young Hawkhurst, to tell you the truth. I hardly like to think that he did it; and yet after that attack of sleepy sickness he certainly did turn very queer in his temper. You’d have seen a fine outburst if you’d been with us when we went up for the curare. And there’s no disguising the fact that he and Roger didn’t get on together at all. Given an unbalanced mind and that state of affairs, one has to admit that queer results might turn up.”
“What do you make of the opportunity factor in his case?”
“All we have is his own word that he was up at the spinney shooting rabbits. For all we know, he may have been in the Maze. He knows it thoroughly. All the family do, of course.”
He thought in silence for a moment or two, then added:
“And of course he’s very keen on air-guns; and he knew of the store of curare in the house.”
“You’ve made out quite a fair case against both Hackleton and young Hawkhurst as suspects, Squire; but there isn’t a tittle of evidence there that a jury would look at, you know.”